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Artist’s Statement by Rocio Rodriguez
My paintings address a world-view that embraces differences, oppositions, contradictions---always seeking the essence of the subject by presenting it pictorially in differing ways. The themes that have been present in my work have at times, acted as surrogates to address larger philosophical and conceptual concerns. One of the questions that I have always explored in my work is, "What is the nature of a specific thing if it can be represented in various ways, even in opposing ways?"
The paintings are derived from smaller works on paper and canvas. I photograph these works and input them into the computer where I continue to draw and expand upon the idea, creating a new image. I then use this image as the basis from which the larger paintings are made. The language of the work remains abstract and open-ended with no specific narrative. The painterly is juxtaposed with the digital creating a whole that is based on the inclusion of opposing ways of thinking. The paintings include references from world maps, to cellular structures suggesting a relationship between the social, the physical, the biological, the political as the underlying base from which I present various interests that range from international politics, cultural identity, to existential concerns.
Artist’s Statement by Don Cooper
Information gathered from travel and study of various world cultures has greatly influenced my work. While traveling in India, I became familiar with the concept of the bindu. It often appears as a single dot in Indian painting and sculpture. This Sanskrit word has multiple definitions. It may represent the dot or point at which the universe expands and recedes, a point of departure and return, a nucleus of condensed energy, inner space, or a seed of being and consciousness.
These paintings are both experimental and experiential. Beyond the initial central starting point and concentric circle framework, very little of the painting is planned. Variation of color appears from multiple layers of transparent paint. The colors form and change gradually as each layer is applied. The paintings grow very slowly; over hours, days and weeks. There is no attempt to represent reality or to illustrate a narrative. The paintings are free of such things as irony, angst or political or social meaning. If the paintings are about anything, it is the moment in time that they are created and the moment in time that they are experienced by the viewer. The creation of these paintings is both meditative and ritualistic. The hand moves the brush loaded with liquid color around and around the concentric circles. Each rotation represents a connection to the Whole.
Artist’s Statement by Betsy Cain
Often in the middle or in relationship to the middle of my paintings there is a massing or knotting of line. I see this line as the making of form and space, as a core of energy, and as a meandering path to meaning. These lines are related in idea to the song lines of the Australian Aboriginals - a mapping of space and time and place by song (line) and landmark (the geography of the body).
I am interested in physicality and the language of the body. Instead of depicting the parameters of the body, my work explores state of the mind and the energy of the body. There is a liquidity involved. Edges move into altered realms, there are overlaps, convergences, and the history of previous paths are visible.
I learned this gestural notation by drawing in Art History classes. I drew all images: paintings, sculpture, and architecture and I had to do it fast. Click. The information caught, if accurate, identifies the art work as well as creates a underpinning or armature for memory and so it seems, for the body of my work.
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